Project Phases

This documentation represents the culmination of over three years of activity, conducted in three phases, from November 2020 to March 2024 (Table 2).

Each phase in the project concluded with a review process involving key stakeholders and advisors, in order to satisfy the pilot project’s Acceptance Criteria.

To reach a broad readership, these activities have been communicated in general terms. In the future, detailed appendices will be prepared to document the more technical aspects of this project’s implementation, to support knowledge mobilization and capacity building for Whiteswan Environmental and other communities interested in replicating this work.

Table 2. Summary of Pilot Project Phases

Phase	Start	End
Phase I: Planning, Outreach & Research	November 1 2020	March 31, 2021
Phase II: Prototype Development	April 1, 2021	March 10, 2022
Phase III: Participatory Mapping	January 2023	April 2024

Phase I of this pilot project began in November 2020, with support from the Southern Gulf Islands Community Resource Centre. Phase II began in early 2021, and Phase III in early 2023, with funding from the Healthy Watersheds Initiative / Indigenous Watersheds Initiative, the Capital Regional District, and the UBC BRITE Internship Program. The pilot project was completed in April 2024.

Working within constraints

The phased timeline of this pilot, combined with difficulties associated with COVID, set challenging constraints on this project, making it difficult to do full justice to this place in the Salish Sea.

We chose this location because we knew there was a fair amount of existing information regarding the area’s biodiversity and cultural history, which allowed us to make a small gesture toward the longer term vision for this work. These resources included:

• historical and contemporary biodiversity data
• terrestrial ecosystem mapping data
• published ecocultural resources
• documentation from past participatory mapping of the ecological communities of Galiano Island
• videography created by Karolle Wall
• knowledge shared by Puneluxutth’ elder, Thiyuas (Florence James)

From deliverables to process

Unfortunately, Florence James suffered a stroke in the early stages of our outreach in 2021. Though she had granted permission for us to include media she had previously shared about Xetthecum, it was not possible to continue consultation with her on the timeline of our initial grant through the Southern Gulf Island Community Resource Centre.

We envisioned that our mapping framework would eventually take on a narrative-based “story-mapping” approach that could support dialogue about important ecological and cultural dimensions of Retreat Cove beyond the term of our grant funding.

How the work unfolded

• Phase I: Our approach was to make the most of pre-existing resources, to develop a preliminary mapping framework as an early beta phase of this program.
• Phase II: We focused on continued outreach and consultation, the generation of multimedia content, the enhancement of our GIS using drone imagery, and the development of a prototype ecocultural map.
• Phase III: We elaborated our prototype framework through a cross-cultural co-design process, engaging community members through working groups, a BioBlitz, and interviews.

In Phase III, we also deepened the roots of this work through a couple of important gatherings:

• A Transboundary Gathering: Digital ecocultural mapping in the Salish Sea took place in the San Juan Islands, situating the project in the context of Strait Salish Territories in honour of WE’s vision for this work. This event was made possible through a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Connections Grant obtained by the Inclusive Design Research Centre, IMERSS and WE.
• A small gathering in Hul’q’umi’num’ territories on Galiano Island, focusing on the cultural significance of Xetthecum, was attended by several Indigenous community members, including Puneluxutth’ elder Augie Sylvester.

Looking ahead

Despite the constraints set on this pilot project, we did our best to build community connections throughout the Salish Sea, to foster a diverse, multidisciplinary, intergenerational, and cross-cultural community of practice to continue this work into the future.

In the short term, we believed that we could achieve worthwhile results in the creative synthesis of existing ecocultural resources with what additional content we were able to respectfully weave together on the timeline of this pilot.

We also aimed to foster intergenerational transfer of knowledge and skills, to help young Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members develop competency in baseline biodiversity inventory and eco-cultural mapping as a professional practice.

Through this pilot we hoped to set an example for how this work might be undertaken despite limited resources in other small communities, informing methods that can be readily implemented using available biodiversity data and ecocultural information. As a starting point, we believe this framework holds much potential to be adapted and expanded through the continuation of this work.